Warriors of the Heart

Dear Star Anise Organic family,

How’s my community doing in these challenging times? It’s pretty intense. Eight years ago I was going through one of the most intense times of my life. I made the heart breaking decision to leave my partner of 17 years (the father of my 2 children). I felt like I had let go of one trapeze bar but didn’t have the security of the next, free flowing in the void of no mans land having no idea what my life will look and feel like as a solo mama. My psychologist at the time handed me “The Parable of the Trapeze” to read and it helped me enormously to understand that the space or void between the 2 worlds where we sometimes find ourselves in (whether it’s between jobs, relationships, countries, or careers) is actually where the greatest opportunity for growth is. I re-read it last night and paused to consider that the excerpt applies just as much to the human collective as it does to the individual. Humanity is indeed in the in-between transitionary space- gripped with uncertainty, fear and confusion. We are leaving behind the old world with its broken systems and now have the opportunity (or at least the invitation) to co-create a brand new one. The way to cope in the transitionary void is to TRUST that we will be divinely held and divinely supported by the universe.  I hope you too find some solace in The Parable of the Trapeze…

Sometimes, I feel that my life is a series of trapeze swings. I’m either hanging on to a trapeze bar swinging along or, for a few moments, I’m hurdling across space between the trapeze bars.

Mostly, I spend my time hanging on for dear life to the trapeze bar of the moment. It carries me along a certain steady rate of swing and I have the feeling that I’m in control. I know most of the right questions, and even some of the right answers. But once in a while, as I’m merrily, or not so merrily, swinging along, I look ahead of me into the distance, and what do I see?

I see another trapeze bar looking at me. It’s empty. And I know, in that place in me that knows, that this new bar has my name on it. It is my next step, my growth, my aliveness coming to get me. In my heart of hearts, I know that for me to grow, I must release my grip on the present well-known bar to move to the new one.

Each time it happens, I hope—no, I pray—that I won’t have to grab the new one. But in my knowing place, I know that I must totally release my grasp on my old bar, and for some moments in time I must hurtle across space before I can grab the new bar. Each time I do this I am filled with terror. It doesn’t matter that in all my previous hurdles I have always made it.

Each time I am afraid I will miss, that I will be crushed on unseen rocks in the bottomless basin between the bars. But I do it anyway. I must. Perhaps this is the essence of what the mystics call faith. No guarantees, no net, no insurance, but we do it anyway because hanging on to that old bar is no longer an option. And so, for what seems to be an eternity but actually lasts a microsecond. I soar across the dark void called “the past is over; the future is not yet here.” It’s called a transition. I have come to believe that it is the only place that real change occurs.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the transition zone is the only real thing, and the bars are the illusions we dream up to not notice the void. Yes, with all the fear that can accompany transitions, they are still the most vibrant, growth-filled, passionate moments in our lives. And so transformation of fear may have nothing to do with making fear go away, but rather with giving ourselves permission to “hang out” in the transition zone — between the trapeze bars — allowing ourselves to dwell in the only place where change really happens.

It can be terrifying. It can also be enlightening. Hurdling through the void, we just may learn to fly.

Excerpted from Warriors of the Heart by Danaan Perry.